


Roses

by JustAnotherUnderstudy



Series: This Should Totally Be A Thing [53]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/M, Roses, School Assignment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherUnderstudy/pseuds/JustAnotherUnderstudy
Summary: In retirement, James has found a hobby as far opposite from his job as you can possibly imagine.
Relationships: James Bond/M, James Bond/M | Olivia Mansfield
Series: This Should Totally Be A Thing [53]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/579049
Comments: 9
Kudos: 13





	Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone. I am not dead. I feel like it, but I'm not. I hope you all are doing well. I have not been able to write anything for quite some time. I think all this COVID isolation has just finally wrecked me. But I will try to blog about that later since it would be more appropriate for that media.
> 
> This is a story I am writing for a school assignment, which is the only way I've been able to complete any writing for the last two months really. Have a look over it and let me know what you think. The prompt is to write something in slow motion. I'm not really sure if I've got it here. 
> 
> As for me writing and reading anything in the near future, I'm not really sure. I will try. While I am not depressed, I am extremely overwhelmed with how hopeless the reality is in the US. I mostly wanted to post this here to check in on all of you and see how you were doing. Leave me a comment on your life and how things are going.

James stepped across the sitting room threshold into the back garden. The air was cool but held the promise of later heat. He left the door open to allow some fresh air inside and immediately walked to the spigot where the empty bucket waited. He turned the water on and stared out at his roses as he listened to the bucket fill.

When he first moved into the cottage there had been just one rose bush, the Susan Williams Ellis. Unplanned, one afternoon, he took knife in hand and cut some of the blooms to make a sloppy bouquet to take to _her_. The act had so pleased him that within a week he acquired two more bushes. By the time he had been in the cottage a year, both sides of the garden fence were lined with new roses. Over the years the roses had crept into the middle of the garden and one might now be forgiven for mistaking it for a mini Chelsea Flower Show.

The water was high enough in the bucket now. James turned off the water, picked his hand-clippers off the shelf over the spigot, and hefted the bucket to the bush that had inspired it all. He looked over each rose carefully before making his choice of which to cut. They had to be at the right point in the bloom, not too tight, those would droop and never bloom; not too open, the wind and rain would pull them apart quickly. He found seven that were ideal and carefully pulled the stalk of the first toward him. At the middle he cut it straight across. He twirled the stalk in his hand to admire the rose from all sides. Yes, this one would do, he thought, as he dropped it into the bucket of water.

This process he repeated six times more. With each rose he carefully placed his cutters midway down the stem. The familiar pressure against the sharp edges as his hand squeezed the blades together and through the flesh of the plant gave him an odd sense of peace. He felt his heart calm and his breathing even out, almost as calm as sleep. With great regard, he examined each rose all the way around to make sure there were no flaws, no bugs, only an exemplification of everything the flower should be. The deeper he looked, the more he called to mind how the multitude of white petals all crammed onto the head of the Susan Williams Ellis reminded him of _her_ own tousled white hair.

At last he placed the final rose into the water bucket. He turned to his garden and gave it a small satisfied smile before he lifted the bucket and returned to the house, entering this time through the kitchen door. Inside, he left his shoes on the mat and padded softly in socked feet to the cellar. The roses would rest an hour just inside the door where it was cool enough to help preserve them and give them a longer vase life.

_Later that same day..._

As James replaced the small vase and the flowers from a week earlier on the stone that bore her name, he wondered, as he always did, why it had never occurred to him to bring her flowers while she still lived.


End file.
